Rich Folks Buy Art To Beat Hyperinflation

You could buy gold, but that’s a pain. You can buy a farm and water and firearms, but that’s kind of depressing. If you’re in Europe you can buy dollars, but those could be toilet paper, too.

How about art?

Despite the horrifying environment for the once super-wealthy, recent art auctions haven’t been getting killed like you might expect. Sure it’s down, but not horrendously so. People will still plunk down millions for oil paint on canvas.

Sotheby’s day sale of lower-value material on Wednesday also turned in excellent results, achieving $23m. Among the strong bidders at the sales was the private London dealer Ivor Braka. Asked why he thought they had done so well, he said: “Perhaps people are anticipating global inflation, and want to put their money into something tangible,” while the art dealer José Mugrabi commented: “At the moment there is more money being produced than paintings.”